Judge proposes setting May 7 trial date for Manafort and Gates

A federal judge on Friday proposed a May 7 trial date for President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, another former campaign aide.

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson said she would hear arguments about that date at a hearing scheduled for Nov. 6.

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Manafort and Gates pleaded not guilty on Monday to charges including money laundering and making false statements, among other counts — marking the first public charges to be announced as part of special counsel Robert Mueller's sprawling Russia probe.

The trial — and the lead-up to it — are expected to be a high-profile affair and will keep attention sharply focused on Mueller's probe, which has cast a large shadow over Trump's presidency.

It was also revealed this week that Mueller's team had cut a plea deal with George Papadopoulos, a former foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign, based on charges that he had lied to the FBI about his communications with Russia-linked contracts.

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In the Manafort and Gates case, a court document filed Friday says “any trial date that is set in this case will be a firm trial date.”

Jackson on Thursday said she was considering issuing a gag order limiting public statements from lawyers involved in the case, given the intense media coverage of the proceedings.

“This is a criminal trial, and it’s not a public relations campaign,” she said Thursday. “I expect counsel to do their talking in this courtroom and in their pleadings and not on the courthouse steps.”

Kevin Downing, Manafort’s attorney, told reporters outside the courthouse on Monday that the indictment was “ridiculous” and there was “no evidence” of collusion with Russia during the presidential campaign.

Downing and Tom Zehnle wrote in their first substantive pleading Thursday that the indictment against Manafort is weak. “In order to conceal this weakness in the Indictment, a façade of money laundering has been put forth using a tenuous legal theory,” they wrote. “The weight of the evidence outlined against Mr. Manafort has also been embellished.”